Oftentimes, I find myself on sides of TikTok that are talking about culture and society. Now, I’m not a cultural theorist or social psychologist but because I think so much about the why’s of the internet, these videos stand out to me. This TikTok in particular felt very meta: a TikTok talking about TikTok’s effect on trends. More interesting was the Vox article it led me to, talking about the “death” of trends and subcultures. These two pieces of content honed in exactly on an internet phenomenon that I had been noticing but couldn’t find the words to explain.
Because there are so many different parts of TikTok that people can find themselves on, there really is no more mainstream or monoculture. Each person’s algorithm serves their own interests. With a billion monthly active users, there are more niche communities on the platform than I can even imagine. With every user seeing different content, what can we consider mainstream? My For You page might be flooded with so much of a “trend” that I think everyone else is seeing the same content, when in reality, others are seeing completely different “trends” from completely separate parts of TikTok.
I remember back in 2013, when I first got on Tumblr, there were clear cut distinctions between the mainstream and subversive. This was the era of the hipster craze. When pop music was lame and everyone turned to indie and alternative music to set themselves apart from “normie” culture. But then this “trend” of being a hipster spread so far and wide, with companies like Urban Outfitters commodifying the coveted aesthetic, that it was no longer a subculture. And with different trends and aesthetics going viral every week on TikTok, that exact phenomenon happens on an exponentially expedited and widespread basis.
The visibility and virality of social platforms made it really hard for subcultures to stay subcultures. It became a way for people to connect online that didn’t need a specific physical space.
Sean Monahan
What’s interesting about this to me is that there’s no longer a pressure to signal our identities through just one digital aesthetic. As a teen during the early 2010s, I was scrambling to figure out what subculture I wanted to belong to—how could I firmly entrench myself in that community? Now, TikTok churns out trends on an endless conveyor belt. Subcultures aren’t really subcultures anymore because they’re not subverting any sort of mainstream. All of these digital moments coexist, lending more flexibility to the aesthetics and communities I want to explore for myself.
